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These six books, which cover the period 1875-1890, contain copies of Batchelor's personal and business correspondence. Many of the letters pertain to Edison, his inventions, and his businesses. Among the topics discussed in the early correspondence are the removal of Edison and his laboratory to Menlo Park in 1876; the operations of the electric pen business, of which Batchelor was the general manager in 1875-1876; and work on telegraphy and telephony during the mid-1870s. The correspondence from the years 1878-1883 deals extensively with Edison's electric lighting experiments and the operations of the various electric light companies that he established. Two of the books contain correspondence from 1881-1883, when Batchelor was Edison's representative in Paris, and relate to electric lighting in Europe. The last book dates from 1887 and concerns the equipping of Edison's West Orange laboratory.

The following categories of documents have not been selected: routine letters of transmittal or acknowledgment; routine correspondence concerning the ordering and shipping of materials; routine letters about financial transactions; personal and family correspondence after 1900 unrelated to Edison; duplicate copies of cables and other selected documents. A few letters were not selected because they are illegible. Although every technical effort has been made to ensure the legibility of the documents, some of these materials may be difficult to read because of spreading, smeared, or faint ink; bleedthrough; and severely wrinkled or torn pages.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.